The Doctor is called upon by the White Guardian, the embodiment of order
and light, to find the six disguised segments of the Key To Time --
scattered throughout time and space -- so that the Guardian can restore
the faltering universal balance. To this end, the White Guardian
provides the Doctor with a new assistant in the form of the young Time
Lady Romana. Their first destination is Ribos, a mediaeval-style planet
which a con man named Garron is trying to sell to the megalomaniacal
Graff Vynda-K. When the Graff uncovers Garron's treachery, the crook's
assistant, Unstoffe, flees into the monster-infested Catacombs, little
realising that amongst his possessions is the first segment of the Key
To Time.

Production

When he became Doctor Who's producer in 1976, Graham Williams
planned to take a brand new approach to Season Fifteen. Williams was
leery of the level of coincidence involved in the Doctor stumbling upon
an adventure in each successive serial, and also felt that the Time
Lord's free-agent status placed him in a morally ambiguous position. The
producer thought that it would be more effective if the Doctor was
acting on behalf of a higher power, who would send him on a series of
missions.

To this end, Williams developed an overarching storyline which would run
through the entire season, in which the Doctor is despatched by a cosmic
force known as the White Guardian to salvage the six segments of the Key
To Time, which is essential to maintaining the balance between good and
evil in the cosmos. This powerful artefact has been stolen by an agent
of the White Guardian's opposite number, the Black Guardian, who has
disguised and scattered the segments throughout time and space. During
his quest, the Doctor would be racing against the clock -- having been
provided with a “candle” whose glow would fade as chaos
overtook the universe -- and would also be hampered by acolytes of the
Black Guardian.

During his quest, the Doctor would be provided with a
“candle” whose glow faded as chaos overtook the universe

Williams submitted a three-page outline of his plans for Season Fifteen
on November 30th, 1976. However, the production team had to start
commissioning scripts early in the New Year, and the Key To Time concept
demanded considerable forward planning and coordination. Consequently,
it quickly became obvious that there wasn't enough time to implement
Williams' vision; instead, the producer decided to postpone the Key To
Time storyline until Season Sixteen. The services of Tom Baker for these
episodes was secured on November 25th, 1977, when he was contracted for
all twenty-six installments; this meant that Baker would match Jon
Pertwee's tenure on the programme, which had been the longest of any
Doctor to date.

Towards the end of 1977, Williams and script editor Anthony Read fleshed
out the Key To Time format and assembled a potential roster of writers
for the season. Amongst them was Robert Holmes, Read's predecessor, who
had written The Sun Makers for Season
Fifteen before handing over to Read. Holmes had also been approached to
write that season's concluding adventure, but had declined the offer in
favour of spending some time away from Doctor Who. Instead,
Holmes agreed to write the first adventure of Season Sixteen, designated
Serial 5A. This very much met the approval of Williams and Read, because
the veteran writer could be relied upon to deliver scripts which would
require minimal work -- an essential start to a season which promised to
be more logistically challenging than usual.

Working to the requirement that his adventure feature no film work of
any sort, Holmes devised an idea called “The Galactic
Conman”, for which the scripts were commissioned on December 9th.
This became “Operation” (slang for a confidence trick) and
finally The Ribos Operation. The planet Ribos was patterned after
mediaeval Russia, with the name being an anagram of the common Russian
name “Boris”. The currency of Ribos, the opek, was a
reference to both the Russian kopec (one-hundredth of a ruble) and OPEC,
the Organisation of Petroleum-Exporting Countries.

Holmes originally wrote the Seeker as a man and Garron as Australian
(hence the reference to his fradulent sale of the Sydney Opera House),
although the latter detail would be changed to make Garron a Londoner
when Iain Cuthbertson was cast in the role. Holmes left the opening
sequence involving the White Guardian to be written by Williams and
Read, while the script editor also contributed the notion that the piece
of jethrik was actually the first segment of the Key To Time. Initially,
the jethrik was important because it was actually a source of incredible
energy which could power a fleet of spaceships.

In addition to kickstarting the Key To Time arc, another important
function of The Ribos Operation was the introduction of the
Doctor's new companion. Williams had tried until the last minute to
convince Louise Jameson to stay on Doctor Who for another season
as Leela, but the actress had refused. Choosing to err on the side of
caution, Williams had developed a replacement character in the form of
the Time Lady Romanadvoratrelundar (whose diminutive form was originally
“Romy” and then “Romana”). The director assigned
to Serial 5A, George Spenton-Foster, was brought on board early to help
Williams cast Leela's successor. The Ribos Operation would be
Spenton-Foster's second and final Doctor Who serial, after
working on Image Of The Fendahl the
previous year. He went on to helm episodes of Blake's 7 and
Cribb.

Out of about three thousand applicants for the role of Romana, six
actresses were selected to audition with Tom Baker on February 14th,
1978 (the same day that John Leeson was contracted to voice K-9 in
The Ribos Operation). One finalist was Belinda Mayne, who would
later appear as Delta in Delta And The
Bannermen. But despite the fact that Williams had pictured
Romana as a Grace Kelly-esque blonde -- a traditional ice queen to
provide a sharp contrast with Leela -- the role ultimately went to Mary
Tamm.

By coincidence, Tamm and Louise Jameson had trained together at the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Since then, Tamm had made several
television appearances in shows like Coronation Street, and had
also earned a number of film credits, including The Odessa File
and The Likely Lads. Although she harboured some misgivings about
becoming the Doctor's latest companion, her fears were assuaged by the
character's strength and promises that Romana would not be just another
screamer. Tamm was initially contracted for two serials, and her casting
was heralded by a press photocall on February 17th.

A major question mark at the end of Season Fifteen had been the status
of K-9 as an ongoing element of Doctor Who. Although the
character was very popular with young viewers, the prop was noisy and
broke down often, and his remote control mechanism sometimes interfered
with the studio cameras. Williams was reassured that K-9 could be
improved, however, and so The Ribos Operation introduced a
“Mark II” version of the robot dog. To address the various
problems, visual effects designer Dave Havard collaborated on the new
prop with K-9 operator Nigel Brackley, who had recently moved from the
Radio Control Model Centre to Slough Radio Control.

K-9 Mark II was a new prop designed in response to the
problems experienced during Season Fifteen

Meanwhile, upon his return from holiday on March 7th, Williams met with
his superior, Head of Drama Graeme McDonald. At this time, McDonald
asked that Williams tone down the level of jokiness exhibited in Season
Fifteen serials like The Invasion Of Time.
There was a degree of irony in this request, because Williams had chosen
to emphasise humour in his stories following criticism of the levels of
violence and horror exhibited in Doctor Who during the three-year
tenure of his predecessor, Philip Hinchcliffe.

The Ribos Operation was recorded in BBC Television Centre Studio
4. Work began with a three-day session from April 9th to 11th. The first
day dealt with scenes in the relic room, the shaft and the landing.
Although Tamm quickly forged a good relationship with Baker -- something
that Louise Jameson had never really enjoyed -- Baker quickly took
exception to Romana's bright white dress. Plans for Romana to always be
seen in white (to reflect the concept of her as an “ice
queen”) were hastily dropped.

The rest of the material on the landing was taped on the 10th, along
with sequences in the Graff's room and the passage, and on the tower
roof. The final day of the first block dealt with the sets for the city
wall, the concourse, and the corner door leading to the Hall of the
Dead. This session was disrupted by continued demarcation disputes
amongst the crew, a situation which had played havoc with the recording
schedule for The Invasion of Time at the
end of 1977. On this occasion, there was disagreement over who was
responsible for lighting the torches seen in many of the Ribos sets.

A serious incident occurred shortly before the start of the second
studio block. Tom Baker was trying to get George, a Jack Russell terrier
owned by Paul Seed (who played the Graff Vynda-K), to perform a trick
when the dog inadvertently bit him. The accident left Baker with a deep
cut on the left side of his upper lip. As a result, the actor was forced
to wear a large plaster cast, visible in some of the publicity photos
for The Ribos Operation. More painfully, the wound had to be
concealed using make-up during the final two studio days on April 24th
and 25th. Fortunately, the nature of the scenes left to be recorded at
least meant that the star's face could often be partly hidden, so that
continuity with the previously recorded material was not completely
lost.

Before the second studio block, Paul Seed's terrier
inadvertently bit Tom Baker, leaving him with a deep cut on his lip

Creating further chaos with the remainder of the recording schedule were
the ongoing labour disputes. Spenton-Foster had planned to enlarge the
scale of sets such as the White Guardian's limbo and magnify the size of
the Shrivenzale by erecting coloured screens to facilitate the use of
Colour Separation Overlay. However, the floor technicians could not
agree on who should handle the screens, and so the effect had to be
largely abandoned. Making its debut during this block was the Key To
Time prop, several copies of which had been constructed by Dave Havard.
The segments of the Key actually fit together and the prop was based on
a puzzle given to Havard by Williams. To ensure that the segments were
not confused with one another, the producer kept the props locked in his
office, divulging only the appropriate segment on recording days.

The second studio session took place on April 24th and 25th. The first
day involved the completion of the remaining Ribos scenes: in the Hall
of the Dead, the Catacombs and the caves. The climax of episode four was
significantly altered at a late stage. Originally, the Graff did not
murder the Seeker but instead sent her back to the Catacombs, whereupon
the Captain set off the explosion to seal the caves (killing the Seeker
in the process). Believing himself to be the prophecied survivor, the
Graff -- insane and hallucinating about past campaigns -- then took an
ammunition pouch from a supposedly dead guard. The Doctor would reveal
himself at this stage while an explosion detonated, proclaiming the
Graff's final end. Work on The Ribos Operation concluded on April
25th, which was dedicated to the TARDIS material and the prologue in the
White Guardian's domain. These scenes then heralded the start of
Doctor Who's sixteenth season on September 2nd.